Dr. Drew Pinsky, host of “Rehab with Dr. Drew” and the nationally-syndicated radio show “Loveline” will be speaking at Georgia State this Valentine’s Day. The critically-acclaimed author and practicing physician talked with The Signal about love and how students are doing it all wrong.
The Signal: Do you think romance is dead?
Dr. Drew Pinsky: No…right now things are really difficult on college campuses and I will build that case at the event, with the whole hook-up culture. There is this whole theory of love that it needs commitment, and commitment is something people have no model for because they often come from destroyed families. People are often looking for the exit when the relationship becomes difficult.
So many people come from ruptured families and childhood abuse [thinks that put] humans in dangerous territory. The sort of common camps that people fall into, or common sort of patterns, are love addiction and love avoidance, or a fluctuating between the two. If they are in the love addiction phase they tend to go for people that are abandon or that are only difficult or only bad for them.
The whole model of intimacy and how it works and what it does for us is something that is ruptured or lost and our culture doesn’t reinforce it. … [relationships are] a very source of our landscape of emotional regulations.
TS: What is going wrong?
Dr. Drew: Passion is confused with intensity. And passion is not intensity. It can be intense, but passion replaces everything else. People confuse intensity for love and that’s sort of how people get love addicted. Intensity is just another way of finding another drug as opposed to passion, and passion is a difficult landscape to navigate. Usually passion is the most unhealthy part of one person being attracted to the lest unhealthy part of another person, it’s actually were passion comes from.
TS: So you think this is something that happens every generation or do you think this is something that is unique to right now?
Dr. Drew: No, it’s unique. The technology [has] further perpetuated that by not just distracting and creating intense experiences and giving you models of love and romance that are flawed; whether it’s crazy, love-addicted movie relationships, (by the way, if those were my patients I would have big lawsuits on my hands), or it’s pornography where actors are acting out ways that are supposed to model real sexuality, and unfortunately it’s just not. I don’t think we have had something quite like this, except maybe re-revolutionary France.
TS: Do you see this [culture] changing in the near future?
Dr. Drew: I am eternally hopeful about humans, especially humans. I so see that the pendulum is always swinging back and forth…but the overall trend that I’ve seen is not in a good direction. One of the more serious parts of that trend is the separation between people like yourself that are kicking ass in college and killing yourself to get your education versus people that don’t get out of bed and don’t know how to get a job. That lower grope is growing fast. The upper group, the group that’s so competitive, both groups lack the capacity for real intimacy or at least have deficiencies there. I don’t know how it’s going to play out.
TS: What can humans do on an individual bases to combat this?
Dr. Drew: Just know that hanging out with another human, and being open and close and honest with them can be very healthy and healing. Particularly people that you feel very passionately about. It doesn’t have to be a romantic connection. A really good sort of strategy is to hang out with some people that are different than who you normally hang out with and perhaps you can see yourself through a new pair of glasses. Try to co-create an experience with a novel person that helps you see yourself differently and experience things differently…Sitting and talking is much healthier than yelling over music and beer at a frat party. And the random hook-ups do not move you forward.
Event:
Dr. Drew Pinsky, host of “Rehab with Dr. Drew”
Distinguished Speaker Series
Valentine’s Day
3 p.m. Feb. 14
Student Center Ballroom
Free and open to the public
Great interview!